Glencore, a mining and energy giant based in Baar, Switzerland, is hoping to join the ranks of firms that dominate the trading of agricultural products, known as the ABCD companies (Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus).

Glencore’s agriculture joint venture, Glencore Agriculture Limited, made an informal takeover approach to one of those companies — Bunge, which is based in White Plains.

The offer comes as swaths of the industry are being reshaped by deals:

• China National Chemical Corporation, known as ChemChina, is closing in on a $43 billion takeover of Syngenta, the Swiss farm chemical and seed company.

• ChemChina is also said to be in talks to merge with Sinochem, a fellow Chinese state-owned chemicals company, in a deal that would create the world’s biggest industrial chemicals entity, according to Reuters and The Financial Times. Reuters cited people with knowledge of the negotiations and The Financial Times cited several unnamed senior bankers in Asia.

• Dow Chemicals and DuPont are working to close their merger.

• Bayer is trying to complete its takeover of Monsanto.

Glencore, which merged with its rival Xstrata in 2013, has been hit by a slump in commodity prices, and it sold a stake in its agriculture business to Canadian pension funds to enhance its ability to pursue acquisitions.

The Bunge deal would give Glencore a major presence in the United States — a long-held goal of the company’s chief executive, Ivan Glasenberg, according to The Wall Street Journal, which earlier reported the approach.

It is not certain whether there will be any discussions. Bunge said in a statement that it was not in talks with Glencore, according to Bloomberg and Reuters.

Vision Property on the Do-Not-Sell List

Fannie Mae, the government-controlled mortgage finance giant, said that, based on a review of Vision Property Management’s rent-to-own program, it had stopped selling properties to the company.

Fannie will also impose restrictions on future sales of foreclosed homes to firms that engage in abusive forms of seller financing, including rent-to-own leases or long-term installment agreements.

The policy move will crimp the business of investment firms that have been buying foreclosed homes on the cheap to sell to people who do not qualify for a conventional mortgage.

The New York Times reported on the abuses with the leases and contracts these companies were offering — people who bought into the promise of owning their own home found themselves struggling with the hidden costs of repairs and overdue fines owed to municipalities.

Uber to Repay Drivers

The ride-hailing service had taken its cut from payments that included state taxes.

If a passenger hands over $20 and $2 of that is tax, Uber’s commission should be a proportion of the $18. But it was taking its cut from the $20 figure — small change when it is one ride, but a huge amount cumulatively.

Uber vowed to correct the practice and pay their drivers what they were owed, but the amount could rise, because its handling of payments has raised the legal issue of whether those taxes were improperly coming out of the drivers’ wallets in the first place.

The Silicon Valley firm’s contract allows the company to deduct its 25 percent commission, not taxes, from fares. A drivers’ advocacy group in New York sued the company for making its drivers swallow the tax burden, saying it amounted to wage theft.

The Missing Budget Details

Economists have yet to be convinced by one major idea in President Trump’s budget: the assumption that tax cuts will unleash growth.

The claim about fueling expansion is hard to back up, with few details in the budget or proposed tax changes.

“The assumed effects on growth are just huge and unwarranted,” said William G. Gale, a co-director of the nonpartisan Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center and former economic adviser to the first President George Bush.

Lawrence H. Summers, a Harvard economist who served in the Clinton and Obama administrations, called it “the most egregious accounting error in a presidential budget in the nearly 40 years I have been tracking them.”

The administration, for its part, said the focus on details was misplaced.